Birth control debate rattles some in GOP

Burlingame, Calif. — The sputtering economy and fast-rising gas prices fire the passions of Republicans trying to beat President Obama in the 2012 election.

But some GOP activists are unhappy that the party’s candidates and elected officials keep making headlines on another issue — birth control.

“It’s a losing proposition,’’ Gail Neira, head of the San Francisco Republican Bay Area Alliance, said as she roamed the state GOP convention in Burlingame over the weekend.

Especially, she said, when it appears most of the talk is coming from male presidential candidates and officeholders.

“I resent my moral life and health being dictated to by a man, and I don’t care who he is,’’ Niera said. “Are they giving up Viagra and vasectomies?’’

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., kicked the hornet’s nest when, as head of the House Oversight Committee, he conducted a hearing on the Obama administration’s mandate that religiously affiliated institutions, but not churches, provide contraception coverage to their employees as a preventative health measure. Five clergymen, and not a single woman, testified.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seized on the proceeding as proof of the GOP’s chauvinistic “war on women” regarding health care issues.

At the California Republican convention this past weekend in Burlingame, Issa told reporters that he believed it important to hear from clergy.

“I don’t think I can regret that the Catholic Church doesn’t have women priests, that’s a religious decision,’’ he said, adding that his work on the panel had been “spun” and “distorted” by Democrats.

“Speaker Pelosi wanted to have a story about contraception because she doesn’t want to deal with the fundamental fact that the president is out of line on the question of the Constitution,” Issa said.

Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., also insisted that contraception was not the key issue.

“I happen to believe in religious liberty,” he said. “To suggest that is not an issue worth fighting for, is to not understand America.”

Democrats say the GOP is doing itself no favors with critical women voters by continuing to talk about contraception.

“Watching a bunch of old white Republican guys debate birth control while excluding women is like watching Mitt Romney pretend to understand the struggles of the unemployed,’’ said Democratic strategist Dan Newsman. “The fact that Republicans would choose to elevate the issue of contraception in an election year with a wobbly economy is mind-numbingly stupid.

“Maybe with the economy showing strong signs of improvement, the GOP is desperately grasping for a new issue — but why highlight an issue in which they are so far out of the mainstream?’’ Newman asked. “The only question is if they’re dumb or desperate — or maybe both.’’